An evening of karaoke sounds innocent enough. But what about when the whole experience is built on the exoticisation of a culture, without giving anything back to that very same community? The popular karaoke bar Duke of Tokyo, with branches in Amsterdam, Utrecht and Rotterdam, is a poignant example of this.
In 2022, I spoke out on my Instagram account about Duke of Tokyo, a karaoke bar in Amsterdam and Utrecht that, according to them, tries to imitate “Tokyo by night” I shared my concerns about how this business appropriates East Asian cultures, objectifies women’s bodies and uses a fantasised version of Japanese identity as a marketing tool. It generated a lot of recognition and support, but also resistance.
Now, a few years later, what has changed?
Duke of Tokyo‘s entire branding revolves around ‘Tokyo vibes’ : neon lights, Japanese texts and signs, and East Asian visuals are the common thread running through their social media and interior design. They post random photos from Pinterest, Tumblr and Instagram, often without any source reference or permission. A recurring pattern until I spoke out about the karaoke bar in 2022 is the use of photos of Japanese women, with sexist hashtags such as #JapaneseGirls, accompanied by fire and heart emojis. This is the definition of objectification.
Women’s bodies, in this case those of East Asian women, are reduced to visual props. As if their existence serves only as a backdrop for an “authentic” experience. It is exoticism in its purest form. Read the article I wrote in 2021 about cultural appropriation (in Dutch).
Duke of Tokyo presents itself as a “real Japanese karaoke bar”. However, nothing could be further from the truth. There is not a single person of Japanese or East Asian descent on the management team. All the founders are white. In their crowdfunding video, they ask with a straight face: “Is the Netherlands ready for a real Japanese karaoke bar?” The answer is simple: what they are presenting is not a Japanese karaoke bar. It is a white fantasy of what Japan should be, with profits for themselves at the expense of Japanese culture and people.
They go even further than aesthetic appropriation: in 2017, they organised a Halloween party called “Memoirs of a Dead Geisha”. Employees appeared dressed in so-called “geisha costumes”, complete with thick black eyeliner and stereotypical Asian accessories. Images of this circulated on their social media for years. Only after criticism arose online did they quietly remove them. No apologies. No accountability. Just digital cleaning.
These photos were posted respectively in 2017 and 2018. In the one on the right, chef “Freek” (left) is seen with thick black eyeliner to create a “yellowface” caricature. This racist caricature is used to depict “East Asians”. It is a stereotype that has been used in countless films, series, cartoons and other media.
The woman next to him, “Simone Nicole”, wears the same eyeliner and strikes the same pose. They laugh and squint their eyes. Together with the headband and, once again, Japanese text in the caption, they create this racist caricature.
If you type Japanese or Chinese costumes into a search engine, you will immediately see how racist these so-called “costumes” are. You will also see the same eyeliner and Fu Manchu moustache. It’s a facial hair feature often associated with stereotypical portrayals of East Asian people in film and television, particularly Chinese villains.
In their crowdfunding campaign on social media and in their promotional video for Duke of Tokyo, the owners ask: “Are you ready for a real Japanese karaoke bar?”
By calling themselves a “real” Japanese karaoke bar, they are lying, stealing and pretending to create something authentic. That’s not true – they are all white men who fetishise East Asian women and have been on holiday in Japan.
The photo on the left depicts a scene from the racist film Lost in Translation.
The film mainly shows Japan and its inhabitants as a backdrop for the white main characters. They are portrayed in a stereotypical, caricatured or incomprehensible way, often purely for humour. Little to no effort has been made to show Japanese culture or people with nuance and empathy, which contributes to the exoticisation and dehumanisation of East Asians.
In their response, they write that they are crazy about karaoke and Scarlett Johansson. The owners of Duke of Tokyo are just as East Asian as Scarlett Johansson in Ghost in the Shell. So it makes sense that they are fans of hers.
All of this content has been online since 2017. Only after I shared my stories about this company did they quietly remove the posts I cited in 2022. By removing these posts, they show that they know something is wrong.
Their Facebook page featured posts sharing photos of Japanese women from the well-known blog Tokyo Fashion without crediting them. Even after people pointed out that they should tag the blog, they failed to acknowledge this. In fact, their response was, “It’s difficult because it’s a Pinterest image.” This kind of behaviour shows that they were never interested in appreciation, only in clicks, likes and profit.
They used images of Japanese people to ridicule them: videos in which people are filmed on the street, accompanied by texts and emojis that suggest that it is supposed to be funny how “strange” Japanese people dress or behave. Orientalist, stereotypical and deeply disrespectful.
In addition, one of the photos shows Chinese-Australian model Fernanda Ly accompanied by the hashtag #Japanese, even though she is not Japanese at all.
Cultural appropriation is not an abstract phenomenon. It is tangible. It has economic and emotional consequences. Companies such as Duke of Tokyo capitalise on East Asian cultures without taking responsibility for the loaded imageries they spread or the communities they profit from. While people of East and Southeast Asian descent face racism, stereotyping and marginalisation on a daily basis, their cultures are shamelessly used for entertainment, marketing and economic gain.
Not long after I addressed all this in an Instagram post, I received the following comment from them:
“First, thank you for calling our attention to these posts. We are extremely sorry that they were ever posted in the first place, and also sorry that we didn’t take them down sooner and apologise for them earlier.
No matter when we posted it, it is on us to correct past errors in judgement, credit all posts on our social media and remove anything that is offensive, inappropriate, or damaging. We took action to remove those posts before writing this response because we agreed wholeheartedly they needed to be removed and we wanted to act on that quickly. We took additional time to respond to ensure that our response isn’t just an apology, but also a commitment to do better.
Second, we are currently working to address the wider issues that you’ve touched on in your stories and post. It’s not enough to not act badly. We want to actively do better. We know that we made bad decisions in the past, and moving forward we are consulting with community groups to determine what actions we can take to be supportive of Japanese and Japanese-owned businesses and to be allies to the Japanese community here in the Netherlands. As a business, we have strived to create bars where all kinds of people feel welcome, safe, and excited to be there – guests as well as staff, so this issue is very close to our hearts. We will be making a formal statement with specific commitments within the next few weeks, once we have consulted with community groups and had input from members of the community. As white men, we know that we don’t have the lived experience or expertise to develop these commitments ourselves. We are very grateful for this opportunity to begin righting our wrongs and to do our best to make sure that we do better moving forward.”
Which community groups were approached? And who are the “members of the community” referred to? If there is genuine listening and collaboration, then transparency is essential. Who was involved in these discussions? What is being shared, which voices are being heard, and how is that input being taken into account? No formal statement has been issued either. Despite these promises and the passing of years, the answers to these questions remain unanswered.
It is difficult to believe that this has happened, since 2022 several new businesses have opened, such as Izakaya Duki. Meanwhile, the same problematic naming and marketing continue to be repeated. A genuine commitment to change requires more than a reaction after the fact. It requires consistent action, public accountability and active collaboration with people who have been offering criticism and sharing knowledge for years.
Not a one-off consultation, but structural involvement. We therefore look forward to a concrete plan of action and real visible changes. Only then can we truly talk about recovery.
Before you go out for dinner or plan a night of karaoke next time, ask yourself: Who benefits from this? And, is this culture being honoured or exploited?
Also, read our article on the difference between cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation.
Report racism and discrimination via our website. Reporting works!
Rui Jun Luong (1996), raised in Friesland, has faced discrimination and racism. As a multidisciplinary designer, photographer, videographer, creator of Guess Who: Asian Edition, and founder of Asian Raisins, she works to raise awareness of injustice, racism, and discrimination. Through the creation of this platform, she hopes to prevent others from experiencing what she went through.
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